BRS MLA Offers Saris, Bangles to Turncoats, Congress Calls It Insult to Women
HYDERABAD: In what the ruling Congress described as scant disrespect to women, Bharat Rashtra Samithi MLA Pade Kaushik Reddy on Wednesday offered saris and bangles to the 10 party legislators who defected to the Congress as “they are no longer men.”
And to make his point all the more telling, he held up a sari in one hand and some bangles in the other at a press conference he addressed along with K.P. Vivekanand Goud at the BRS headquarters, declaring his intention of ‘gifting’ the saris and bangles to each of the 10 BRS MLAs who quit the party to join the Congress.
Kaushik Reddy’s unsavoury comments came close on the heels of his party working president K.T. Rama Rao, who a few days ago, ridiculed free travel to women stating that the party had no objection if women did break dance or recording dance (a demeaning word) in buses. He later apologised for his comments.
The Congress also reminded the BRS leadership that its MLA insulted women a day after Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy declared that Koti Women’s University would be named after Chakali Ailamma who exhibited exemplary courage to fight Razakars during Nizam rule.
Kaushik Reddy’s action brought a swift and equally dramatic retribution from the Congress with its leader Bandru Shobha Rani, chairperson of the Telangana State Women’s Co-Operative Development Corporation, taking off her shoe and warning the BRS MLA that he would face slaps with the shoe for his comments.
She was addressing a press meet with other women leaders of the Congress where they roundly castigated Kaushik Reddy for his actions and comments.
It began with Kaushik Reddy, no newcomer to controversy, declaring that the 10 BRS legislators who crossed over to the Congress were no longer men and had no courage to own up their action of defecting. “They are finding lame excuses claiming that the scarves they wore when they joined the Congress did not belong to that party,” he pointed out.
Later, Shobha Rani said, the BRS made it a habit to insult women across Telangana and not just the BRS MLAs who joined the Congress. “Telangana women have a fighting spirit,” she declared, asserting that women in the state would not tolerate such disrespect.
Shobha Rani further accused Kaushik Reddy of blackmailing voters by swearing on his wife and daughter, claiming he threatened to commit suicide if he lost the Assembly elections in Huzurabad. She also suggested that if Kaushik Reddy wanted to send ‘saris and bangles’, then he should do so to the BRS president K. Chandrashekar Rao first, as the BRS “was built on defections.”
B. Sandhya Reddy, another Congress spokesperson, added that the derogatory comments should be addressed by the Women's Commission and reminded Kaushik Reddy of the Congress’ respect for women, pointing out that Congress Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy had named the women’s university after Chakali Ailamma, a freedom fighter from Telangana.
